CHAPTER 7
Abbasid Decline and the Spread of Islamic Civilization to South and
Southeast Asia
CHAPTER SUMMARY
By the mid-9th century, the Abbasids were losing control over their vast Muslim Empire.
Distance hampered efforts to move armies and control local administrators. Most subjects
retained local loyalties. Shi’a dissenters were particularly troublesome, while slave and peasant
risings sapped empire strength. Mongol invasions
in the 13th century ended the very weakened
state. Despite the political decline, Islamic civilization reached new cultural heights, and Islam
expanded widely in the Afro-Asian world through conquest and peaceful conversion.
The Islamic Heartlands in the Middle and Late Abbasid Era.
The Abbasid Empire
disintegrated between the 9th and 13th centuries.
Peasant revolts and slavery increased. Despite
the artistic and intellectual creativity of the age, the position of women eroded. Signs of decline
were present during the reign of Caliph al-Mahdi (775-785). He failed to reconcile moderate
Shi’a to Abbasid rule. Al-Mahdi abandoned the frugal ways of his predecessor and surrounded
his court with luxury. He failed to establish a succession system resolving disputes among his
many sons, leaving a lasting problem to future rulers.
Imperial Extravagance and Succession Disputes.
One son, Harun al-Rashid, became one of the most famous Abbasid caliphs. The luxury and intrigues of his court were immortalized in The Thousand and One Nights. The young ruler became dependent on Persian advisors, a trend followed during later reigns as rulers became pawns in factional court struggles. Al-Rashid’s death led to the first of many civil wars over the succession. The sons of the winner, al-Ma’mun, built personal retainer armies, some including Turkic nomads, to safeguard their
futures. The armies became power centers, removing and selecting caliphs; their uncontrolled
excesses developed into a general focus for societal unrest.
Imperial Breakdown and Agrarian Disorder.
The continual civil violence drained the imperial treasury. Caliphs increased the strain by constructing costly new imperial centers. Peasants had imposing tax burdens, often collected by oppressive tax farmers, forced upon them. Agricultural villages were abandoned and irrigation works fell into disrepair. Bandits and vagabonds were everywhere; they participated in peasant rebellions often instigated by
dissident religious groups.
The Declining Position of Women in the Family and Society.
The freedom and influence
during the first centuries of Islam severely declined. Male-dominated Abbasid society imagined
that women possessed incurable lust, and therefore men needed to be segregated from all but
the women of their family. The harem and the veil symbolized subjugation to men. The
seclusion of elite women, wives, and concubines continued, and the practice of veiling spread to
all. Abbasid wealth generated large demand for concubines and male slaves. Most came from
non-Muslim neighboring lands. Poor women remained economically active, but the rich were
kept at home. They married at puberty and spent their lives in domestic management and
childbearing. At higher political levels, women intrigued for advancement of their sons’
careers.
Nomadic Incursions and the Eclipse of Caliphal Power.
By the mid-10th century, breakaway former provinces began to challenge Abbasid rule. The Buyids of Persia captured Baghdad in 945. The caliphs henceforth became powerless puppets controlled by sultans, the actual rulers. The Seljuk Turks defeated the Buyids in 1055 and ruled the remnants of the
Abbasid Empire for two centuries. The Seljuks were staunch Sunni who purged the Shi’a. For
a time, Seljuk military power restored the diminished caliphate. Egyptians and Byzantines were
defeated, the latter success opening Anatolia, the nucleus of the later Ottoman Empire, to
settlement by Turkic nomads.
The Impact of the Christian Crusades.
West European Christian knights in 1096 invaded Muslim territory to capture the biblical Holy Land. They established small, rival kingdoms that were not a threat to the more powerful surrounding Muslim leaders. Most were recaptured near the close of the 12th century by Muslims reunited under Saladin. The last fell in 1291. The Crusades had an important effect on the Christian world through intensifying the existing European borrowing from the more sophisticated technology, architecture, medicine,
mathematics, science, and general culture of Muslim civilization. Europeans recovered much
Greek learning lost after the fall of Rome. Italian merchants remained in Islamic centers after
the crusader defeat and were far more important carriers of Islamic advanced knowledge than
the Christian warriors were. Muslim peoples were little interested in European civilization.
An Age of Learning and Artistic Refinements.
The political and social turmoil of late Abbasid times did not prevent Muslim thinkers and craftsmen, in states from Spain to Persia,from producing one of the great ages of human creativity. Rapid urban growth and its associated prosperity persisted until late in the Abbasid era. Employment opportunities for skilled individuals remained abundant. Merchants amassed large fortunes through supplying
urban needs and from long-distance trade to India, southeast Asia, China, north Africa, and
Europe. Artists and artisans created mosques, palaces, tapestries, rugs, bronzes, and ceramics.
The Full Flowering of Persian Literature.
Persian replaced Arabic as the primary written language of the Abbasid court. Arabic was the language of religion, law, and the natural sciences; Persian became the language of “high culture,” used for literary expression administration, and scholarship. The development of a beautiful calligraphy made literature a visual art form. Perhaps the greatest work was Firdawsi’s epic poem, Shah-Nama, a history of Persia from creation to Islamic conquest. Other writers, such as the great poet Sa’di and Omar
Khayyam in the Rubaiyat, blended mystical and commonplace themes in their work.
Achievements in the Sciences.
Muslim society, for several centuries, surpassed all others in scientific and technological discoveries. In mathematics, thinkers made major corrections in the theories learned from the ancient Greeks. In chemistry, they created the objective experiment.
Al-Razi classified all material substances into three categories: animal, vegetable, and mineral.
Al-Biruni calculated the exact specific weight of 18 major minerals. Sophisticated, improved
astronomical instruments, such as the astrolabe, were used for mapping the heavens. Much of
the Muslim achievement had practical application. In medicine, improved hospitals and formal
courses of studies accompanied important experimental work. Traders and craftsmen
introduced machines and techniques originating in China for papermaking, silk weaving, and
ceramic firing. Scholars made some of the world’s best maps.
Religious Trends and the New Push for Expansion. The conflicting social and political
trends showed in divergent patterns of religious development. Sufis developed vibrant
mysticism, but ulama (religious scholars) became more conservative and suspicious of non-Muslim influences and scientific thought. They were suspicious of Greek rationalism and
insisted that the Qur’an was the all-embracing source of knowledge. The great theologian al-
Ghazali struggled to fuse Greek and Qur’anic traditions but often was opposed by orthodox
scholars. The Sufis created the most innovative religious movement. They reacted against the
arid teachings of the ulama and sought personal union with Allah through asceticism,
meditation, songs, dancing, or drugs. Many Sufis gained reputations as healers and miracle
workers; others made the movement a central factor in the continuing expansion of Islam.
New Waves of Nomadic Invasions and the End of the Caliphate.
In the early 13th century,central Asian nomadic invaders, the Mongols,
threatened Islamic lands. Chinggis Khan destroyed the Turkic-Persian kingdoms east of Baghdad. His grandson, Hulegu, continued the assault. The last Abbasid ruler was killed when Baghdad fell in 1258. The once-great Abbasid capital became an unimportant backwater in the Muslim world.
The Coming of Islam to South Asia.
Muslim invasions from the 7th century added to the complexity of Indian civilization. Previous
nomadic invaders usually had blended over time into India’s sophisticated civilization. Muslims,
possessors of an equally sophisticated but very different culture, were a new factor. The open,
tolerant, and inclusive Hindu religion was based on a social system dominated by castes, whereas Islam was doctrinaire, monotheistic,evangelical, and egalitarian. In the earlier period of contact, conflict predominated, but as time passed, although tensions persisted, peaceful commercial and religious exchange occurred in a society where Muslim rulers governed Hindu subjects.
Political Divisions and the First Muslim Invasions.
The Umayyad general Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered and annexed Sind, and, despite quarrels
among succeeding Muslim dynasties, the occupation endured. Many Indians, treated
as “people of the book,” welcomed the new rulers because they offered religious tolerance an
d lighter taxes. Few Arabs resided in cities or garrison towns, and minimal conversion efforts
did not change existing religious beliefs.
Indian Influences on Islamic Civilization.
Although Islam’s effect on India was minimal, Islamic civilization was enriched by Indian culture. Indian achievements in science, mathematics, medicine, music, and astronomy pa
ssed to the Arabs. Indian numerals were accepted, later to pass to Europe as “Arabic” numerals. Colonies of Arabs settled along India’s coasts, adopted local customs, and provided staging points for later Islamic expansion to island and mainland southeast India.
From Booty to Empire: The Second Wave of Muslim Invasions.
After the initial Muslim conquests, internal divisions weakened Muslim rule and allowed limited Hindu reconquest. In the 10th century, a Turkish dynasty gained power in Afghanistan. Its third ruler, Mahmud of Ghazni, began two centuries of incursions into northern India. In the 12th century, the Persian Muhammad of Ghur created an extensive state in the Indus valley and north-central India.
Later campaigns extended it along the plains of the Ganges to Bengal. A lieutenant to
Muhammad, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, later formed a new state, with its capital at Delhi on the
Ganges plain. The succeeding dynasties, the sultans of Delhi, were military states; their
authority was limited by factional strife and dependence on Hindu subordinates. They ruled
much of north-central India for the next 300 years.
Patterns of Conversion.
Although Muslims came as conquerors, early interaction with Indians was dominated by peaceful exchanges. The main carriers of Islam were traders and Sufi mystics, the latter drawing followers because of similarities to Indian holy men. Their mosques and schools became centers of regional political power, providing protection to local populations. Low and outcast Hindus were we
lcomed. Buddhists were the most numerous converts. Buddhist spiritual decline had debased it
s practices and turned interest to the vigorous new religion of Islam. Others converted to
escape taxes or through intermarriage. Muslim migrants fleeing 13th- and 14th-century Mongol
incursions also increased the Islamic community.
Patterns of Accommodation.
In most regions, Islam initially had little effect on the general Hindu community. High-caste Hindus did not accept the invaders as their equals. Although serving as administrators or soldiers, they remained socially aloof, living in separate quarters and not intermarrying. Hindus thought the Muslims, as earlier invaders, would be absorbed by Hindu society. Muslim communities did adopt many Indian ways; they accepted Hindu social hierarchies, foods, and attitudes toward women.
Islamic Challenge and Hindu Revival.
Muslims, despite Indian influences, held to the tenets of Islam. The Hindu response, open to all individuals and castes, led to an increased emphasis on devotional cults of gods and goddesses. The
cults, open to men, women, and all castes,stressed the importance of strong emotional bonds to the gods. Mira Bai, a low-caste woman, and Kabir, a Muslim weaver, composed songs
and poems in regional languages accessible to common people. Reaching a state of ecstatic
unity brought removal of all past sins and rendered caste distinctions meaningless. Shiva, Vishnu, and the goddess Kali were the most worshiped. The movement helped, especially
among low-caste groups, to stem conversion to Islam.
Stand-Off: The Muslim Presence in India at the End of the Sultanate Period.
Similarities
in style and message between Sufis and bhaktic devotees led to attempts to bridge the gaps
between Islam and Hinduism. The orthodox of each faith repudiated such thought. Brahmins
denounced Muslims as temple destroyers and worked for reconversion to Hinduism. Muslim
ulama stressed the incompatibility of Islam’s principles with Hindu beliefs. By the close of the
sultanate period, there were two distinct religious communities. The great majority of the
population remained Hindu. They were convinced of the superiority of Indian religion and
civilization and of its capability to absorb the Muslim invaders. South Asia remained the least
converted and integrated of all areas receiving the message of Islam.
The Spread of Islam to Southeast Asia.
Southeast Asia had been a middle ground where the
Chinese part of the Eurasian trading complex met the Indian Ocean zone. By the 7th and 8th
centuries, southeast Asian sailors and ships were active in the trade. When Muslims, from the
8th century, gained control of Indian commerce, Islamic culture reached southeast Asia. The
13th-century collapse of the trading empire of Shrivijaya, ruled by devout Buddhists and
located on the Strait of Malacca and northern Sumatra, made possible large-scale, peaceful
Muslim entry.
Trading Contacts and Conversion.
Peaceful contacts and voluntary conversion were more
important to the spread of Islam than were conquest and force. Trading contacts prepared the
way for conversion, with the process carried forward by Sufis. The first conversions occurred
in small northern Sumatran ports. On the mainland, the key to the spread of Islam was the city
of Malacca, the smaller successor to Shrivijaya. From Malacca, Islam went to Malaya,
Sumatra, and the state of Demak on Java’s north coast. Islam spread into Java and moved on to
the Celebes and Mindanao in the Philippines. Coastal cities were the most receptive to Islam.
Their conversion linked them to a Muslim system connected to the principal Indian Ocean
ports. Buddhist dynasties were present in many regions, but since Buddhist conversions were
limited to the elite, the mass of the population was open to the message of the Sufis. The island
of Bali and mainland southeast Asia, where Buddhism had gained popular support, remained
impervious to Islam.
In Depth: Conversion and Accommodation in the Spread of World Religions.
Great civilizations and world religions have been closely associated throughout world history. World
religions, belief structures that flourish in many differing cultures, have to possess a spiritual